Our Text for today is Luke 4:16
“So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.”
What Would Jesus Do? Well, according to this verse, it was his habit to go to the synagogue. When Jesus went home at the start of his ministry, he went to “church” as was his custom or habit. Of course the Scripture says, “synagogue” but that is what we would call today “church.”
Whether we know it or not, our lives are based around our habits. What we eat, how we react to stress, whether or not we snooze the alarm – these are all dictated by the habits we have allowed into our lives.
Charles Duhigg wrote a best selling book called, “The Power of Habit.” In it he said that approximately 45% of everything we do in a day, every day, is done by habit. If you have good habits, then this is encouraging. But if your habits aren’t what you want them to be, then that means half of the decisions you had the opportunity to make you had already chosen by your habit.
Despite all the mistakes King David made, he kept coming back to God’s Word, readjusting his life according to what God’s word said. Paul grew up a passionate Pharisee who lived and breathed the Scriptures.
If anyone could have taken a pass at a daily Bible habit, it was Jesus. Yet time and time again we see Jesus going off alone to pray in quiet. In Matthew 4, when Jesus faced his temptations in the wilderness, Jesus used his knowledge of God’s word to defeat Satan.
He understood, better than any of us, how deeply our humanity needs to be fueled by encounters with the divine.
If you want to have a great Bible study in your life, make it a habit to study the Bible regularly. When you do, the great part will come on its own.
Lonnie Davis